Comments on Ryan Swanson: Introducing: The Flex 3 Regular Expression Explor...

@ivan and funkysoul, Thank you for the heads up a...

2010-08-01T23:21:44.889-04:00

@ivan and funkysoul,

Thank you for the heads up and sorry it took me a while to get it cleared up!

Cheers,
Ryan

hey ryan, thanks a lot for your greate RegEx explo...

2010-08-01T17:31:26.501-04:00

hey ryan, thanks a lot for your greate RegEx explorer, sadly something is not working well, an error is being thrown I assume that the XML that holds the regexp collection is malformed.

This is just to tell you that the Example Explorer...

2010-06-02T03:59:53.421-04:00

This is just to tell you that the Example Explorer doesn't work at the moment. Firebug says its' a db problem.
Thanks for the great work.

This is awesome- great job

2010-05-22T20:07:08.196-04:00

This is awesome- great job

Just discover this amazing tool!, thanks a lot, it...

2009-10-13T19:01:33.507-04:00

Just discover this amazing tool!, thanks a lot, its great to rapidly test RegExp without creating a project, and see some contributions made by the community. It really helped me a lot today. Looking forward to the AIR version.

Thanks again for your work.

Excellent tool. Awesome job Ryan

2009-03-06T15:41:00.000-05:00

Excellent tool. Awesome job Ryan

Amazing tool! Thank you very much!

2009-02-25T18:06:00.000-05:00

Amazing tool! Thank you very much!

hye...

2009-02-11T21:38:00.000-05:00

hye...

I found something strange, i'm trying to split...

2009-01-17T08:22:00.000-05:00

I found something strange, i'm trying to split a string on a comma, but not if they're escaped with a \.

So i'm using this expression to find the unescaped commas: /(?<!\\),/ig

And running it on this string:
"escaping a \, comma, just a comma"

And the strange part about this is, in your RegExr it works, it finds the right comma, but when i try it in flash cs4 it doesn't it finds both of them. Why is that? Did you write your own regexp engine? ;)

Hi there,

Thanks for this very useful tool....

2008-12-05T09:18:00.000-05:00

Hi there,

Thanks for this very useful tool.

I tested it with a regexp which is giving me some trouble (to detect hyperlinks).

The regex I used is this:
/((((?:http|ftp|https):\/\/)|(www\.))[-A-Za-z0-9+&@#/%?=~_()|!:,.;\x5D\[]*[-A-Za-z0-9+&@#/%=~_()|])/

It worked fine in your tool but this same regex does not work correctly when run under my flex3 application.
I can make it work by removing the "\x5D\[" (which means ] and [), but then this no longer works with IPV6 addresses :-(

Does anyone have any idea why this regex would work in your tool but not in my flex app?

@Steve House:

I did create the Show/Hide pa...

2008-10-30T23:15:00.000-04:00

@Steve House:

I did create the Show/Hide panels myself; however, for this application, I didn't really find the need to make any sophisticated re-usable component to accomplish what I was after. If this were a production application for 10 million users in my day job at AT&T, then I would have done the extra diligence to do that.

But to help you out, I just copied some of my interface code and stripped it down to a simple enough example that will illustrate how to create the panels without my giving away the keys to the castle! It won't be pretty (I only spent 10 mins hacking it together), but maybe it will help you along! :)

ShowHideSkeleton.mxml

Enjoy the Show/Hide Skeleton code!

Happy Halloween (in less than an hour)!
Ryan

@dorky dork from dorktown:

Thanks for the f...

2008-10-30T22:34:00.000-04:00

@dorky dork from dorktown:

Thanks for the feedback!

Regarding your first comment about the competition for space between the example list and the 'About this Example' description panel on the left side of the interface...

In considering the base screen resolution I wanted to support for the application, I decided to optimize for 1024x768 or higher since I consider this a developer tool and typical users would likely be using that resolution or higher.

So when an example is selected and the description panel is visible at 1024x768, the example list should still be taller than the description panel. If the current example listing is long, it will still scroll even when an example is selected. So there should never be a case where any aspect of the interface is inaccessible.

That said, I do think that for examples with a long description, the description panel might get too tall, so I will make an update to the application that will establish a maximum height for the description field (after which it would internally scroll the description). This will protect the example listing's real estate since it is a primary UI element.

I think I may also be able to tighten-up the layout of the description panel a little bit, but I am in favor of preserving enough whitespace for scan-ability and aesthetics.

Hopefully these changes will alleviate your concerns.

Now, regarding the default state of the 'Contribute to the Community' panel...

This is something I already considered during my initial development of the application. It would get very annoying to always have to close a bunch of panels (help and contribute) every time you open the application. At the same time, I want new users who have never been to the site to see all of the options readily available the first time they view the application.

So my solution? Local Shared Object. For both the Contribute panel and the Help panel, I included 'memory' of its expansion state in the application. I store the expansion state of each panel to a Local Shared Object entry and then restore to that state when the app runs again.

So to answer your question: Yes. And its already built in. If you want the Contribute panel to be closed when you come into the application again, just leave it closed when you leave! :)

It should be called the 'Toilet Seat Pattern'. As long as no-one else has been in there, it should be as you left it! lol

For those not familiar with Local Shared Object, it is a Flash technology that is analogous in many ways to Cookies in a browser - i.e. temporary local storage in a protected space that is accessible by a web application.

Thanks again for the feedback. Keep it comin!

Ryan

Can you make the "Contribute to the Community" pan...

2008-10-30T18:46:00.000-04:00

Can you make the "Contribute to the Community" pane start out minimized?

Ryan, great job. Love the whole community aspect. ...

2008-10-30T09:54:00.000-04:00

Ryan, great job. Love the whole community aspect. Keep up the great work.

Did you create the collapsible Hide/Show panels or...

2008-10-30T08:52:00.000-04:00

Did you create the collapsible Hide/Show panels or can I get them somewhere?

Its really nice and cool application and very help...

2008-10-29T23:33:00.000-04:00

Its really nice and cool application and very helpful also. Thank you for given this to us.

Great Job :)

What would really be cool is t...

2008-10-29T17:18:00.000-04:00

Great Job :)

What would really be cool is the same as an AIR Application; but it's already very usefull,

Cheers

great tool!
a couple suggestions. when you sele...

2008-10-29T15:40:00.000-04:00

great tool!
a couple suggestions. when you select an item towards the bottom of the Published > Common Input Fields list, for example, "username" the "About this Example" appears and obscures the list items below it. you may need to shrink the height of your browser to see it.

@marc & @funkyboy - You have both discovered a...

2008-10-29T11:53:00.000-04:00

@marc & @funkyboy - You have both discovered an issue I recently came across as well.

First some background (that you may already know). When creating a regular expression in Flex, the forward slash (/) is a special character that represents the outer delimiters for the expression. In other words, it marks the beginning and end of the expression. When you want to include a forward slash (/) by value, it must be escaped: \/.

So for marc's example, it should be:

/\n^error.*\/error$/m

And for funkyboy's example:

/(http|ftp|https):\/\/[\w\-_]+(\.[\w\-_]+)+([\w\-\.,@?^=%&:\/~\+#]*[\w\-\@?^=%&\/~\+#])/

I think the app currently has some code that evaluates and escapes the expression's interior forward slashes before executing the evaluation, but I had intended it to eventually update the expression input field itself with the escaped interior slashes as well. In other words, it would enforce the escaping of interior slashes automatically.

I will be working to add these protections to the application when I get a chance over the next week and will be posting an update. In the meantime, if you are diligent in escaping your interior slashes, it should work just fine.

I also hope to have time soon to add an issue log directly within the interface so that we can report and track issues more easily.

Thanks again for your feedback and I am stoked that you are using the tool and have found it useful!

Ryan

Hi,

I have found the expression I need. It ...

2008-10-29T10:46:00.000-04:00

Hi,

I have found the expression I need. It is:

/(http|ftp|https):\/\/[\w\-_]+(\.[\w\-_]+)+([\w\-\.,@?^=%&:/~\+#]*[\w\-\@?^=%&/~\+#])/

but I can't successfully implement it in my code.

If I try:
var exp:RegExp = /(http|ftp|https):\/\/[\w\-_]+(\.[\w\-_]+)+([\w\-\.,@?^=%&:/~\+#]*[\w\-\@?^=%&/~\+#])/

I get a compile error: d
1086: Syntax error: expecting semicolon before bitwisenot.

If I go with:

var exp:RegExp = new RegExp("(http|ftp|https):\/\/[\w\-_]+(\.[\w\-_]+)+([\w\-\.,@?^=%&:/~\+#]*[\w\-\@?^=%&/~\+#])")

then my exec statement;

exp.exec("http://www.google.com")

returns a null object.

In your application it works. Which method do you call?

Thanks.

Terrific tool. thanks for sharing!!

2008-10-29T10:14:00.000-04:00

Terrific tool. thanks for sharing!!

Ryan, I dig the RegExp Explorer. The community con...

2008-10-22T17:45:00.000-04:00

Ryan, I dig the RegExp Explorer. The community contribution feature is a brilliant idea.

nice tool! I've just used it for real and found a ...

2008-10-22T11:07:00.000-04:00

nice tool! I've just used it for real and found a little bump in the road: when I copied something like /\n^error.*/error$/m over to Flex Builder, I had to fiddle around with escaping \ or /. Is there a function for this?

Thanks for the great feedback!

@jamie - I h...

2008-10-21T14:05:00.000-04:00

Thanks for the great feedback!

@jamie - I have begun some work on advanced features for a 'premium' version, but I am trying to strike the right balance of providing a valuable free tool for the community and still have a compelling additional feature set for a reasonable price that would mostly target advanced users or business customers who may want to manage their own internal example libraries, etc.

@iotashan - I do have an AIR version that I've begun working on, but I still need to figure out a few details regarding how I distribute the free and premium versions. Although it is incredibly easy to package up a Flex app and distribute it through AIR, I intend the premium version in AIR to actually make use of the additional benefits of native file system access, etc. Thus the example library could be configured to point to a local source or network share rather than a service back-end, etc.

And finding time to get the next version out is certainly a challenge as I have a day job, a side business and a personal life in addition to my new-found interest in blogging and sharing with the community!

Ryan

Looks great. Time to convert it to an AIR applicat...

2008-10-21T13:18:00.000-04:00

Looks great. Time to convert it to an AIR application :)

Comments on Ryan Swanson: Introducing: The Flex 3 Regular Expression Explor...

@ivan and funkysoul, Thank you for the heads up a...

hey ryan, thanks a lot for your greate RegEx explo...

This is just to tell you that the Example Explorer...

This is awesome- great job

Just discover this amazing tool!, thanks a lot, it...

Excellent tool. Awesome job Ryan

Amazing tool! Thank you very much!

hye...

I found something strange, i'm trying to split...

Hi there,Thanks for this very useful tool....

@Steve House:I did create the Show/Hide pa...

@dorky dork from dorktown:Thanks for the f...

Can you make the "Contribute to the Community" pan...

Ryan, great job. Love the whole community aspect. ...

Did you create the collapsible Hide/Show panels or...

Its really nice and cool application and very help...

Great Job :)What would really be cool is t...

great tool!a couple suggestions. when you sele...

@marc & @funkyboy - You have both discovered a...

Hi,I have found the expression I need. It ...

Terrific tool. thanks for sharing!!

Ryan, I dig the RegExp Explorer. The community con...

nice tool! I've just used it for real and found a ...

Thanks for the great feedback!@jamie - I h...

Looks great. Time to convert it to an AIR applicat...

Hi there,

Thanks for this very useful tool....

@Steve House:

I did create the Show/Hide pa...

@dorky dork from dorktown:

Thanks for the f...

Great Job :)

What would really be cool is t...

great tool!
a couple suggestions. when you sele...

Hi,

I have found the expression I need. It ...

Thanks for the great feedback!

@jamie - I h...